Euronews

Severe weather conditions have caused death and disruption throughout Europe.

A 31 year old man died after being struck by lightning in Jaen in south eastern Spain, and a nine year old boy perished after being swept away 250 kilometres south of Madrid.

In Portugal up to 30 people were injured when a tornado hit Tomar in the centre of the country. Most of the injured were children at a nursery school whose roof collapsed. In a nearby village five people went to hospital after high-voltage power lines came down on top of them.

Hundreds of British motorists in Scotland and northern England had to sleep in their vehicles after a second consecutive night of severe snow and ice when temperatures fell to minus 20 degrees.

Scotland’s First Minister admitted the government had been caught out by a ‘perfect storm.’

In the Russian capital several thousand trucks shifted 150,000 cubic metres of snow as the region experienced its first snowfall of the winter.

One mother out with her child in a Moscow park was not too unhappy, she said: “We like this weather very much, mainly because of the snow.”

At just below zero Moscow was basking in relatively tropical conditions compared to Scotland.